


Pater Familias

by xanzpet (gleefulmusings)



Category: Charmed
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Gen, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-08
Updated: 2013-02-08
Packaged: 2017-11-28 14:09:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/675265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gleefulmusings/pseuds/xanzpet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Victor Bennett has always known his destiny. Spoilers for "All Hell Breaks Loose."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pater Familias

Parents should never outlive their children, the saying went, but from the moment of his first daughter’s birth, he had known he would outlive her. When Piper and then Phoebe were born, there was no question he would attend their funerals, and he locked away the part of him which obsessively wondered which would die first. In his heart, he had never believed it would be Prue.  
  
Patty's death was hard enough, even though by that time they had been divorced. And then Penny had taken his children away from him, and he had let her, because he wanted to believe that she had been right: that he _was_ useless to them, that she could protect them far better than he ever could.  
  
In the end, she couldn't, and even though he had hated her for her interference in his marriage and despised her for taking from him his children, he mourned when she passed, because he knew it was only a matter of time before Death began stalking his girls.  
  
Now, here he sat at Prue's funeral, the one whom he had believed could survive anything, his toughest critic and greatest love, was dead. And for no good reason he could discern.  
  
Phoebe was beside herself, and while she reached for him, it was only from what she believed was the safe embrace of Cole. He looked into Cole's eyes and saw him for what he was, a demon, and knew horrible things would happen and that he would be powerless to stop them, just as he always had been.  
  
It was Piper who terrified him, so lost and alone, and wanting to stay that way, finding it more tenable than accepting Prue's death. Piper, who had always been the middle child and had taken comfort in that role, even in the times when she resented it the most. Piper, who, in some ways, was stronger than all of them, even Prue. He was never more grateful that she had Leo, who would see her through this, even if she didn't want him to.  
  
One daughter adrift, another in a doomed affair, and his first, his baby, in a box.  
  
Penny and Patty had been right: he didn't understand. He didn't _want_ to understand. He didn't care about the Charmed Ones or their legacy. It meant nothing to him but pain and remorse.  
  
Their destiny was to battle demons, to save the world.  
  
And his was to watch them die doing it.


End file.
